from the um,-huh? dept

Someone who prefers to remain anonymous sent over this odd story of a musical duo who put up a notice on the band's website claiming that, due to "piracy," they were no longer going to sell CDs. But the reasoning makes no sense at all:

NOTICE: Due to uncontrolled Music Piracy, [Our album]
will no longer be sold to the general public. We refuse to cater to thieves and criminals. When the Worldwide Piracy problems is solved, then we
will begin sales once again.

Notice I chopped out the name of the band/album, because this seems so outlandish that I'm wondering if it's just a publicity stunt. Or a joke. It seems like it must be, because the basic logic of the statement above is so backwards as to defy reason. By not selling a CD, you're basically telling people the only way to get the album is through unauthorized channels. At least offering the CD lets some people buy it. Claiming that not selling it is a way to avoid "catering to thieves and criminals" makes no sense, since all it does is make it that much more difficult for anyone to support the band legally. That's why I'm guessing this is some sort of joke. The band also has a Twitter account (again, not linking to it on purpose), which is filled with a ton of articles about unauthorized access to content (many of them very old articles) with commentary that is somewhat amusing for how far off the mark it is. For example, one Twitter message "blames 'piracy'" on some of Nine Inch Nails' experiments -- the ones that are making the band lots of money. So, again, I'm wondering if this is just some sort of reverse psychology attempt by a band to get people to download their stuff. Seems like there are more effective ways of doing that.

from the those-darn-pirates? dept

Reader Vincent Clement alerts us to yet another story of a copyright overreach up in Canada, this time involving the owner of a small independent record shop in Ottawa who was charged with copyright infringement and has pleaded guilty, rather than fight it. The details are a bit confusing, but it sounds like the police raided his shop, and took a bunch of CDs, claiming they violated copyright -- but reports suggest that these are mostly legal imports that simply haven't been packaged for sale in Canada. In some cases, the "infringing" CDs were actually CDs of a local band that the store owner himself helped finance. In other words, these are the sorts of CDs you can find in pretty much any independent record store, and are the sorts of things purchased by true fans and collectors who want to own everything they can get. These aren't the types of products that are "pirated" or bought by people looking to avoid supporting a band. It's the opposite. But, the Canadian record labels and police have now "cracked down." Hope this makes the US politicians claiming that Canada is a piracy haven happy.

from the confusion dept

Dark Helmet alerts us to the news that our good friend Lily Allen is back in the news discussing file sharing again. Tragically, it does not appear that she's used her "time off" to better understand copyright issues very much. Unlike nearly everyone else who complains about copyright infringement, she's apparently "all for" infringing on her copyrights, just so long as you pay someone -- even if it's the guy on the street selling the counterfeit CDs. Seriously:

"If someone comes up with a burnt copy of my CD and offers it to you for £4 I haven't a problem with that as long as the person buying it places some kind of value on my music."

Yes, so while some musicians have said they're fine with non-commercial file sharing, but are against anyone selling their unauthorized works, Ms. Allen seems to have taken the opposite approach. Counterfeit all you want, just as long as you profit from it. Yeah. Someone should explain to her the difference between price and value, and also the benefits of word of mouth marketing. But, it doesn't seem like she's much interested in actually understanding this stuff, so if you want to help her understand, maybe go set up a shop selling burned copies of her CDs, and see what happens.

Of course, if we take this seriously, it shows how little she's thought this through. Her earlier complaint was that when people file share, they don't provide money back to the artists and the labels. Of course, when counterfeiters are selling on the street, the same thing is true, but suddenly it's okay? At what point does the world realize that Ms. Allen doesn't know what she's talking about?

from the be-careful... dept

btr1701 points us to an odd (and slightly disturbing) story about a prisoner in Texas. Most of the story is about the fact that the guy is ridiculously obese and had been able to sneak a gun into prison in between flabs of skin, which was totally missed on a bunch of searches. But, btr1701 points out that the reason the guy was arrested in the first place was because he was apparently selling bootleg CDs. According to the article, he was "charged with possessing or selling unlabeled recordings." Now, I can sort of, maybe, kinda see why selling unlabeled recordings could be a violation of the law (though, even that seems questionable). But, possessing unlabeled recordings? How is that against the law? Does this mean that anyone who burns some music to a blank CD-R could be in trouble? Anyone in Texas have any more details on the real story here, because I'm hoping there's more to it.

from the quotable dept

"There's a process of natural selection going on right now. The music business was waiting to die in its current form about twenty years ago. But then, hallelujah, the CD turned up and kept it going for a bit. But basically, it was dead."

Bingo. The "recording industry" has basically been a "sell plastic discs" industry for way too long, and used the monopoly rents it received from the government to significantly overprice its products, and then lived fat and happy for many years. So, of course, when better, more efficient formats for distribution, recording, promotion and listening came along, it wanted absolutely nothing to do with them, because they didn't present the same sort of monopoly rents.

And, that, of course has been the point we've been trying to make here for quite some time. This has always been a business model issue. The record labels lived off the CD business for so long that it refused to recognize that a better, more efficient system was showing up, because it meant giving up some easy profits.

from the get-that-straight dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in Charles Blow's NYTimes column about the supposed "death" of the music industry. However, Blow makes the most basic of errors: he appears to equate the music industry with the recording industry. He accepts RIAA numbers of when "sales peaked," not realizing that he's only talking about sales of a segment of the wider music industry. Yet as recent studies both from outside and inside the music industry have shown, the overall music ecosystem has been getting larger in terms of dollar volume. Money may be shifting away from CDs, but it's not shifting away from music-related commerce. But, I guess that's what happens when you rely on just the RIAA for your data...

from the you're-on-your-own dept

Apparently, EMI has had enough of independent record stores. Via Digg come reports that EMI has been calling various smaller independent record stores and telling them that it won't sell them product directly any more. Instead, they'll have to source it from third parties -- meaning that it will be more expensive. Basically, this means most of those stores will carry fewer EMI CDs. Of course, some might argue that this won't really mean much, since independent record stores are smaller (and don't always sell as much major label product), but it still seems like an odd choice by EMI. You would think the company would be working overtime to keep the few retail channels pushing its product happy.

from the label?-what-for? dept

Continuing the theme of this week about the new ecosystem of companies out there making it ever and ever easier for musicians to do everything a label used to do for them, comes the news (submitted by zealeus) that Amazon and TuneCore have teamed up to make it incredibly easy and cheap to sell CDs on demand. TuneCore is a very popular service with indie bands, helping them get their content onto various music services -- and now they're adding the ability to do incredibly cheap CDs-on-demand via Amazon. The whole thing costs a grand total of $31/year. Wired does some math, and recognizes that at a price point of $8.98 for the CD, a band only needs to sell nine CDs a year to break even. Nine. While some may say the CD market is dying, if you can offer it at almost no cost to the band, why not have it as an option?

from the that-evil-free-stuff dept

A bunch of folks have sent in the news that Coldplay is doing a promotion whereby they'll be giving away a free CD at every live show and will also make the tracks available for free download on the band's website. The album itself is live tracks recorded during the current tour. As the band notes:

"Playing live is what we love. This album is a thank you to our fans - the people who give us a reason to do it and make it happen."

It's great to see another well-known band learn that "free" can have quite a bit of value, though this does seem a bit more gimmicky than any well-thought-out strategy. Giving away a physical product is nice, but expensive, and unlikely to be a difference maker for those going to shows. Still, it is nice to see a band not freaking out about free and looking for more ways to actually connect with and reward their fans, rather than trying to punish them like some others.

from the not-dead-yet dept

While CD sales dropped 14% overall in 2008, CD Baby -- a popular online music store that lets independent artists sell music directly to fans -- actually saw an increase of 2%. In addition to selling physical discs, CD Baby offers optional digital distribution through iTunes, Amazon MP3, Napster, Rhapsody, eMusic, etc. and directly through their website. Still, almost 30% of albums last year were only offered as physical discs (though, some of these artists probably use other companies for digital distribution). While growth in digital sales was predictably larger (45%), even a small increase in CD sales in the face of the broader crisis is a sign that CD Baby is doing something right.

There are a few reasons why CD Baby could be having better luck with CDs than the rest of the industry. First, a lot of independent artists are discovered through live performances, and the CD has yet to be replaced as the standard format to sell music at shows. The credit card swipers that CD Baby offers artists accounted for $2.4 million worth of revenue last year (though, that includes sales of other merchandise too). Second, CD Baby seems to be taking advantage of the long tail, with minimal setup fees, minimal starting requirements (artists only need to mail in 5 CDs to start selling) and short-run duplication services, though they haven't released enough data to confirm how distributed their sales have been. Lastly, great customer service and a sense of humour can't hurt (e.g. an order confirmation email starts, "your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow..."). Although it doesn't make any sense to base an entire business model on selling CDs, there's still money to be made for artists and companies using CDs as part of their model.